Newark Air Museum

 Today I visited - for the first time in 15+ years - Newark Air Museum. This is a lovely museum with a great collection of mostly British Cold War aircraft. The scary thing is that I can remember most of these being in service!  Recommended as a great day out.  Thanks again to Diego and Martin for their company.

Above - Sea Vixen and Blackburn Buccaneer. 

The well looked-after Vulcan. Always great to see this. 

Fairey Gannet. 

Folland Gnat. 

Gloster Javelin 

Model of a Canberra complete with Suez stripes. 

Rare foreigner - a T-33. 

Bloodhound missile. 

Lovely Dassault Mystere IV. 

Radar for the Bloodhound 

EE Lightning. Fabulous!

Vulcan again 

A modified Canberra looking very sinister in overall black. 

Saab Viggen. 

Sea Hawk 

Tatty ex-Polish MiG-23

Shackleton. Still in service in the’70s. 

F-100 Super Sabre. 

Lovely to see Supermarine Swift (left) and Hawker Hunter side by side. 

Swift

Beautiful Saab Draken. One of my favourites but then I’ve had three slightly slower Saabs. 

Sepcat Jaguar 

Hunter

DDR Museum

An essential for any visitor to Berlin must surely be the DDR Museum.  This seeks to give a view of life before the wall came down, using photos, artefacts and reconstructions of a 'typical' workers' apartment and Stasi offices.

My favourite exhibit - a Volvo 264TE - as used by a few lucky and 'more equal' comrades.  The top brass preferred 2 and 7 series Volvos and Citroen CX rather then anything produced in the Communist bloc.  This, apparently, showed what a go-ahead country the DDR was.

Spacious office accommodation.  At least that's what I have by comparison with this.

"So comrade, where were you last Saturday?"

That Volvo again.

You might understand why I was drawn to this exhibit.  The toy soldiers are about 60mm, the AFVs about 1/87.  The real question I think is 'who killed the bear?'

And finally....no it's not my hotel room.  If you gave the wrong answers in the Stasi interrogation this was the next stop.

A trip to Berlin

Just back from a few days in Berlin. Here are a few fairly random photos to set the scene. Where better to start than a Prussian Field Marshal. 

The TV tower is visible from much of the city. 

Brandenburg Gate. 

Bundestag, complete with enormous glass dome. 

The finance ministry. A vast edifice originally built as the Luftwaffe Ministry and then taken over by the East German government. 

Speaking of the East - it was a lucky comrade who was allocated one of these apartments in Karl Marx Allee. 

No shortage of beer on offer. Purely medicinal of course, as the weather was damn hot. 

 

Shopping opportunities too…..

Gommecourt Wood Cemetery

In April I spent some time in northern France, on the Somme battlefields.  We were staying in the village of Foncquevillers (known to British troops as ‘Funky Villas’) through which ran the British trench lines in 1916.  

As you might expect, the area is dotted with war cemeteries, so as a ‘taster’ here is the first of several.  Just down the road (close enough to easily walk) is the village of Gommecourt - through which ran the German trenches.  Between the two villages is this neat little Commonwealth War Graves cemetery.  Like all CWGCs it’s beautifully kept and being in rural France it’s almost silent.  Makes you think.